The dick pic : harassment, curation, and desire Paasonen, S, Light, BA and Jarrett, K http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2056305119826126

Title The dick pic : harassment, curation, and desire Authors Paasonen, S, Light, BA and Jarrett, K Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/50984/ Published Date 2019

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Social Media + Society April-June 2019: 1­–10 The Dick Pic: Harassment, © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions Curation, and Desire DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119826126 10.1177/2056305119826126 journals.sagepub.com/home/sms

Susanna Paasonen1, Ben Light2 , and Kylie Jarrett3

Abstract The combined rise of digital photography and has expanded what might be considered photo worthy. Among the pouting selfies and food stuffs of the day exists the ubiquitous dick pic. The mainstream media generally focuses on dick pics of the unsolicited kind, which, negatively positioned, are commonly associated with heterosexual harassment. Considering the ubiquity of dick pics across apps and platforms, research on the topic nevertheless remains scarce. In this article, we examine the dick pic as an online communicative form, first considering how it manifests the ability to harass and then moving beyond this dominant framing to analysis of contexts where such images are collated, expected, and sought after. Through this analysis of dick pics as figures and actors of harassment, curation, and desire, we demonstrate the simultaneous tenacity and flexibility of their meanings in connection with the dynamics of consent and non-consent, intimacy and distance, and complex circuits of desire. We further address the role of platforms, apps, and app stores, via their community standards and terms of use, in shaping the nature, and presence, of dick pics, and discuss the affective and communicative functions that these affordances serve (or fail to serve). Our analysis of three key modes of engagement with dick pics demonstrates the ambiguity and multiple valences of the phenomenon addressed.

Keywords social media, dick pics, humor, harassment, gender, user-generated content

With the ubiquity of digital photography, what has been con- Like much sexual social media content, the dick pic is both sidered photo worthy has been expanded to include the commonplace—even ubiquitous—and controversial. everyday, including that which goes beyond its highlights The sharing of dick pics involves gradations of risk con- (Murray, 2008; van House, 2009). Pictures of enjoyed meals, nected to privacy, reputation, and professional status for their pets sleeping, and selfies featuring the accessories of the day producers, recipients, and distributors alike. As listed by the are both documented and shared on social media platforms in male lifestyle magazine, Crave, both female and male health ways that have given rise to novel visual ecologies (see care professionals have lost jobs after taking candid pictures Marwick, 2015; Senft & Baym, 2015). These practices of patients’ genitalia as jokes, men have lost their jobs after involve an extended definition of personal and private pho- accidentally sharing dick pics with colleagues and for docu- tography as it is increasingly practiced through apps with the menting practical jokes involving a penis and the preparation default intention of sharing. of fast food (Henry, 2016). Since the circulation of such pri- Meanwhile, photo worthiness itself remains subject to vate shots fills the criteria for harassment, they have also interpretation and occasional debate, from the distribution of invited corporate and sometimes police intervention. In drunken party photos (Lyons, Goodwin, Griffin, McCreanor, many popular media narrative, dick pics are construed as & Barnes, 2016) to naked selfies (Ringrose & Harvey, 2015; problematic, risky, and even dangerous. Meanwhile, in Salter, 2016). This is the case with the phenomenon of dick pics, a common genre of user-generated visual content involv- 1University of Turku, Finland ing the display of male genitalia. The Urban Dictionary iden- 2 University of Salford, UK tifies the dick pic as “a wordless suggestion of intercourse.” 3Maynooth University, Ireland Yet, despite being defined as straightforward invitations for sexual intimacy, the aims and purposes of dick pics often Corresponding Author: Ben Light, School of Health and Society, University of Salford, Salford, M6 remain obscure to their recipients: the reactions they generate 6PU, UK. certainly do not all revolve in positive affective registers. Email: [email protected]

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). 2 Social Media + Society relation to their ubiquity across apps and platforms, research dynamics around which contemporary debates on dick pics on dick pics remains scarce. Existing studies (see Ringrose revolve. & Lawrence, 2018; Salter, 2016; Tiidenberg, 2014, 2016; Tiidenberg & Gómez Cruz, 2015; Vitis & Gilmour, 2016; Harassing Dicks Waling & Pym, 2017) have considered them as part of the panoply of practices associated with online misogyny and In the framework of heterosexual encounters, unsolicited harassment, in connection with sexting practices where their dick pics are framed as toxic, invoking shivers of horror, purposes can be confusing and their social resonances trou- fear, or disgust in their unwilling recipients (Waling & Pym, bling, as evoking humorous feminist responses, as well as in 2017). Given their focus on encounters of the unsolicited terms of the possibilities for the construction of positive kind, media accounts of women engaging with dick pics in body image. positive or even neutral ways are rare. The same applies to As this diversity of approaches already suggests, the dick pic scholarship where images emerging from mutual exchange is not phenomenologically one singular thing, but rather catches or visual play as desired objects of heterosexual titillation are and orients attention of varying qualities, and establishes diverse rarely addressed (Ringrose & Lawrence, 2018 is a notable relationships between the senders and receivers of these images. exception). Disconnected from female desire, dick pics are Dick pics combine the self-shooting practices of selfie culture associated with harassment, appearing alongside negative with some of the visual codes and capacities of pornography. social media comments, , and gender-based Distributed in one-to-one, one-to-many, and even many-to- hate speech as a dimension of the Internet’s toxic technocul- many communication networks, they are by default subject to tures (Massanari, 2017; Vitis & Gilmour, 2016). Understood degrees of semantic flexibility and affective openness. The issue in this vein, a self-made image of the penis functions as a at stake would not, therefore, be merely disagreements over figure of phallic male power connected to a fundamental lack what may or may not be photo worthy, appropriate for sharing, of sexual safety experienced by women online. Such an obscene or risky in terms of one’s public reputation. It is equally image serves as an online variation of cat calling: in both one of regimes of desirability involved in bodily exposure and instances, the men involved may frame their actions as a the social norms connected to gender, sexuality and sociability. compliment taking the form of sexual interest, yet these nev- Dick pics move in and across different frames of interpretation ertheless fail to be recognized as such. shaped by the affective registers of, for instance, shame, desire, Social media is replete with celebrated accounts of women disgust, interest, amusement, and aggression. These interpreta- reacting to dick pic harassment. In one such widely reported tive frames, both tenuous and flexible, are drawn according to incident of 2016, Samantha Mawdsley received through the dynamics of consent and non-consent; intimacy and dis- Facebook Messenger an unwanted dick pic from a stranger tance; as well as those relating to the circuits of desire and revul- and reacted by bombarding the man with equally unsolicited sion that galvanize encounters between different bodies. They dick pics in return. After the exchange was through, she pub- are also constituted in dialogue with the platform or service licly shared the message thread with the man’s name and where dick pics circulate, its community standards and terms of image intact: use, as well as the communicative functions that such pics may serve within that particular context. My initial thought was to ignore it, as we females are taught from such a young age. But . . . Nah! I decided to mess with him In what follows, we chart the semantic ambivalence, and call him out on all his ridiculous behaviours and double tenacity and flexibility of online dicks pics within three standards. To my delight, he was suckered into the debate! My frames of interpretation through which the dick pic becomes favourite bit is “I just want to puke! Please stop!” . . . genuine understood—or remains unintelligible—as a figure of apologies for all the pics of penis—I censored them because harassment, curation, and desire. Connected to both social NOBODY likes an unsolicited d*ck pic! functions and regimes of desirability, these frames figure the dick pics in distinct, and mutually incompatible, veins. First, Mawdsley’s Facebook account was briefly deactivated we examine unsolicited dick pics as instruments for phallic due to the avalanche of pictures she posted—even if she did power tied in with the gendered dynamics of aggression and use emojis to cover up the dick pics to comply with the plat- shame in heterosexual exchanges. Moving beyond this forms’ rules of use. The ban was lifted as the exchange grew somewhat hegemonic framing, we then turn to examinations viral and her public album covering the exchange was shared of Tumblr galleries dedicated to the art of the dick pic within some 7000 times. Details of the incident circulated on click- scenes of social curation conducted in registers of curiosity, bait sites and more established news platforms with mainly interest, and humor alike. Finally, we address the roles and laudatory headlines celebrating her reaction, such as “Woman functions of dick pics in same-sex attracted male hook-up receives unsolicited d*ck pic from a total stranger—gives practices within the affective registers of desire and aversion. him a taste of his own medicine” (Gladwell, 2016). Thus her- In doing so, we track the presence of dick pics in online alded as a champion for gender equality, Mawdsley’s actions exchanges preceding and spanning social media platforms, were firmly framed as fighting back against sexual harass- with the aim of broadening the gendered and sexualized ment by making it visible. Paasonen et al. 3

For her part, the artist Whitney Bell turned her own col- that makes visible the mundane harassment that women are lection of circa 200 unsolicited dick pics into an exhibit titled subjected to and which fights back through strategies of sat- “I didn’t ask for this: A Lifetime of Dick Pics.” In a Vice ire, reverse objectification and public shaming, the impact of article, Bell emphasized that the project “isn’t dick-hating or which is amplified through broad social media circulation. man-hating. I love a good dick. I just don’t love harassment.” At the same time, the micro-penises in Gensler’s nudes The article further summed up the essence of the matter: can, similarly to Banks’ suggestions of children’s genitalia, “now that everyone has a camera phone, dick pics are ubiq- be considered a gendered form of body shaming. Mawdsley uitous, despite the fact that most women really, really don’t also deployed this tactic when bombarding the man who had want them” (Stevenson, 2016). Even more recently, the tweet sent her the unsolicited dick pic with other dick pics in return, by adult performer Ginger Banks describing her routine of using comments such as: “Are you sending your little penis reacting to unsolicited dick pics by reporting them as child pics to people you think are girls?”; “Well . . . it’s not big, pornography to CyberTipline gained momentum across let’s be honest”; “It’s smaller than the pics I sent you”; “Do online news resources and clickbaits. Her novel standard you want me to send you small dick pics so you feel better?” reply, “Did you just send me a picture of a child’s penis?,” “It By fighting a dick pic with pictures of larger penises, looks like a child’s (sic) penis. Im (sic) reporting this,” Banks Mawdsley broke the desired mode of interaction as one makes use of the reporting and flagging systems in place revolving in the registers of private, heterosexually titillating that, while long focused on child pornography, do not extend show and tell, or phallic superiority. This disruption depended to gender-based harassment among adults. on the framing of the unsolicited dick pic as an object of In addition to individual tactics for countering unsolicited revulsion and symbolic violence, as well as on smaller penis sexual online exchanges, collective projects have emerged, size as a source of shame and embarrassment. The mockery from “Douchebags of Grindr” (est. 2011) documenting unde- of modest (“peanut”) penis size has in fact been identified as sirable and offensive behavior on Grindr (see also Miller, a particular risk of humiliation faced by young men sending 2015, p. 638) to “Bye Felipe” (est. 2014), “calling out dudes nude selfies (Salter, 2016, pp. 2735-2736), and hence as who turn hostile when rejected or ignored.” As we discuss something of a default move in responding to dick pics. further below, in the context of dating and hook up apps for Addressing the social power dynamics of shaming, soci- same sex attracted men sending of unsolicited dick pics does ologist Beverley Skeggs (2004) draws a distinction between not necessarily qualify as douchiness, whereas this tends to ressentiment as an expression of powerlessness following a be the case in heterosexual contexts. In the incidents hurtful experience and resentment as an expression of the described above, the experience of receiving unsolicited dick powerful. For Skeggs (2004, p. 182), ressentiment involves pics was defined as invasive, disturbing, and humiliating— as a form of harassment that cuts down women’s sense of a triple achievement, for it produces an affect (rage, sexual agency rather than contributing to it in any meaning- righteousness) which overwhelms the hurt; a culprit responsible ful or pleasurable way. When perceived as involving more for the hurt; and a site of revenge to displace the hurt (a place to than an edge of male violence, the act of publicly shaming inflict hurt as the sufferer has been hurt). and ridiculing the man in question—often though mockery of penis size—becomes seen as not only acceptable but The reactions by Mawdsley, Banks, and Gensler to unsolic- something to be celebrated. ited dick pics followed the affective contours of ressentiment evidenced in the righteous anger evoked by sexual harass- Shaming Dicks ment, in their identification of culprits, as well as in their tactic of using social media to gain vengeance through sham- In 2014, Anna Gensler started to make unflattering nude por- ing. As an expression of the powerful, though, the affect of traits of men who have made sexual advances, objectified, or resentment is, for Skeggs, deeply tied in with moralism prac- harassed her on the dating apps Tinder and OkCupid, and ticed by “those who feel they are losing the power that they accompanied them with the man’s first name and age, as well once had (or would have had as a result of their positioning)” as excerpts from their exchanges on her and (Skeggs, 2004, p. 182). The dynamics of body shaming are Tumblr project, “Granniepants.” Typically, these portraits connected to this kind of affect. Moralizing involves dwell- represented the harasser with minimized genitalia in connec- ing in other people’s shame (Warner, 2000, p. 4) and shaming tion with their come-ons or aggressive attacks following hence becomes a means of putting subjects back in their their disinterested reception. As a comment on the toxicity of place. Ressentiment and resentment, as outlined by Skeggs, straight male sexual entitlement (F. Shaw, 2016), the project are both at play in the reactions to dick pics, which suggests went viral. One of the men began to bombard Gensler with a complex distribution of agency. graphic death threats and, realizing that her information had Public debates on the unsolicited sharing of sexual imag- suddenly grown public, she stopped updating the project. In ery, from revenge porn to dick pics, revolve almost exclu- their discussion of Granniepants, Laura Vitis and Fairleigh sively on the victimization of women. At the same time, two Gilmour (2016) identify it as a form of critical witnessing recent studies found no gender disparity in being subject to 4 Social Media + Society image-based abuse online (Kaszubska, 2017; Lenhart, Tumblr’s previous terms of service allowed sexually Michelle, & Price-Feeney, 2016) while identifying it to be explicit content as long as it had been flagged as not safe for disproportionately used against queer people under the age work (NSFW), so that users who prefer not to encounter the of 30, against people with disabilities, as well as against material could avoid doing so. Tumblrs mainly consist of racial and ethnic minorities. These findings suggest that images, animated GIFs, and video links. According to the image-based online abuse both draws from and re-animates community standards valid at the time of writing the article, the dynamics of sexual shaming, marginalization, violence, and hate in ways that fail to be accounted for within a frame- You can embed anything in a Tumblr post as long as it’s lawful work of gendered victimization. As the relationship to resent- and follows our other guidelines, but please don’t use Tumblr’s ment suggests, straight women engaged in Upload Video feature to upload sexually explicit video. We’re may also be exercising social power, and hence move not in the business of hosting adult-oriented videos (and it’s fucking expensive). (Tumblr, 2018) between the dynamics of ressentiment and resentment in ways that are difficult to pin down. In contrast with the stricter community regulations of other The shaming of sexual harassers, fueled by the affective image-based social media services such as Flickr, Instagram, intensities of ressentiment and resentment, can be devastat- or Pinterest that it soon caught up with, Tumblr became the ing in its reverberations, especially when such incidents hub for NSFW self-shooting practices, alternative and sub- gain positive viral circulation. In her brief account of online cultural content, and diverse user-curated pornographic shaming, Emily van der Nagel (2016) notes how it can pun- collections. Millennial women have been reported as a par- ish “people permanently and disproportionately to their ticularly active user group for Tumblr porn (e.g. Moore, actions.” Attempts to call off disturbing behavior may 2015; Reid, 2015) while the service’s “queer ecosystem” become a form of online image-based harassment as stories has been identified with the broader creation of minoritar- circulate, accumulate, and become stored for the foreseeable ian, queer, and feminist sexual publics (Cho, 2015; Fink & future in social media data banks through which the people involved are perpetually discoverable. And, as Frances Miller, 2014). Shaw (2016, p. 2) further notes, gleeful coverage of women As Katrin Tiidenberg (2014) points out in her research on turning tables on harassers may take “joy in the practice of NSFW self-shooting, the accepting sexual publics afforded shaming itself,” resort to patronizing and sensationalist by platforms such as Tumblr have remained separate from tones, and indeed “reinforce or perpetuate some of the gen- the shaming, negativity, and snarkiness that characterize dered harms of harassment by encouraging victim blaming much of social media exchange. On Tumblr, sexual self- and sexual shame.” To understand the dick pic as a focal shooting allowed rendering one’s body an object of sexual point in the gendered struggle for power also requires desire independent of one’s precise orientations (see nuanced consideration of these contraflows of power and Tiidenberg, 2016; Tiidenberg & Gómez Cruz, 2015). agency without fixing analysis into a binary model of gen- Alongside the dynamics of shaming that cut through much of der, or to the framework of heterosexual desire. the debates on the public visibility of nude selfies, sexual self-shooting entails emancipatory potential in supporting body positivity in ways that do not simply reiterate dominant Curated Dicks gender norms. This involves both an accommodating plat- As any scholar of the sociocultural would note, the reception form and regimes of consent conditioning the kinds of social that a dick pic receives all depends on the context—and, in the exchanges and uses that the posted images may enter. In this framework of networked media, somewhat on the platform. context, dick pics are not excluded from the realm of pleasur- While an unsolicited dick pic may not evoke an enthusiastic able posing, sexual titillation, and desirable gazing response in some contexts, it may in others. Furthermore, not (Tiidenberg, 2014; Waling & Pym, 2017). all dick pic distribution is unsolicited and not everyone views Madeleine Holden’s Tumblr, “Critiquing your dick pics such images just because they happen to receive one. Some with love,” has been widely covered in social media as a social media platforms encourage or facilitate the sharing of body-positive response to sexting (Hamilton, 2015; Meghan, intimate photographs; others ban them through policy and n.d.). Rather than framing dick pics through aversion and technical affordances that police and censor content. For shame, Holden motivated her enterprise through her appre- example until a drastic change in content policy in December ciation of a good dick pic and her desire to help men improve 2018 banning most sexual content, Tumblr was recognized for the esthetic and technical quality of their intimate self-shoot- its queer-friendly and body positive infrastructure and was of ing practices for the benefit of all parties involved. Her blog the former variety. Many a Tumblr blog—from “Best Cock consisted of submissions by men who wish to have their dick Pics!” to “Let Me Take a Dic Pic” and “Cock Pictures From pic critiqued, or by those who have happened to receive one, the World of Penis Pictures”—were dedicated to the art of the on a scale from F to A + . In their analysis of this Tumblr as a dick pic, along with a plethora of Tumblrs focusing on nude site of subversive feminist humor, Jessica Ringrose and selfies and the curation of amateur porn. Emilie Lawrence (2018, p. 699) saw it as working to reduce Paasonen et al. 5

a reading of the penis as object of power, threat, danger, sexual to hugging bananas, enjoying beer in the great outdoors, and intention, etc. to one of relative beauty, vulnerability, delicacy, being attacked by Pokemons. Things My Dick Does also sur- and style with the penis’ sexual imperative being systematically vived an edited migration from Tumblr to Pinterest via redistributed in commentary as well as in some of the images Priscila Oliveira’s (2018) self-curated board, its cutesy car- themselves. toon-like additions successfully avoiding censorship in Pinterest’s much less open community standards. In its com- In doing so, it opened “space for a more playful relationship bination of sexual explicitness, humor, offbeat cuteness, self- to dick pics as non-threatening, funny, and aesthetically com- love, and social media diversion, the Tumblr occupied a very plicated” (Ringrose & Lawrence, 2018, p. 701). particular pocket in the visual ecology of dick pics. Given that her focus was on photographic style, feel, and Most dick pic Tumblrs involved much less of a narrative execution, Holden refused to critique the dicks themselves framing. “Big Dick Club!” (est. 2010), for example, unfolded and explicitly resists any normative criteria of a “perfect as series of selfies, some with the faces and surroundings dick” as connected to a specifically gendered body. For intact, and some zooming in close to the penis, yet with mini- instance, a shot by a pre-op transman was critiqued for zoom- mal framing beyond mentions of the source. The men in the ing in too close and for being slightly blurry, just as a shot by images displayed their genitalia with facial expressions rang- a cis-gendered man received critique for their distracting ing from a knowing smirk to a deadpan stare, flexing their choice of background, and a woman would get a B for her muscles, and spreading their legs in bathrooms, bedrooms, picture with a strap-on dildo as it lacks “oomph.” The feed- living rooms, and hotel rooms. “Cock Out at Work” and back was constructive and appreciative, focusing on the “Wangs at Work” featured submitted and re-blogged dick pics strengths while raising suggestions for improvement. shot in a range of workplaces and professional contexts. Some Tumblrs consisting of original submissions and reblogged images were anonymous and others much less so; some men content assemble images shot in different times, spaces, and posed at the warehouse and others at a real estate agent office; locations, with different intentions and motivations, into the- some smiled and others disguised their face; some men were matic wholes that again feed other blogs in the movement of young and some considerably older; some wore the uniform endless circulation characteristic to the platform. Joseph of a firefighter, others those of a Marine private, police offi- Brennan (2018, p. 1) has identified this as “microporn” reas- cer, or a flight attendant, while yet others sported a neat suit sembling materials out of context. Writing on the curatorial and tie. Dicks were taken out in shared offices, on the roofs of principles of Tumblr, Alexander Cho (2015, p. 46) points out workplaces, by communal coffee makers and in car repair how its locus of authorship “is less focused on the creation or shops, documented as pictures and animated GIFs. Dicks capture of an original image and located instead around the were erect, semi-erect and flaccid, fully out or candidly peek- personalized stream as a whole, a dynamic of constant move- ing from under the waistband as to go unnoticed by cowork- ment and active selection.” This curation and circulation ers who may or may not be part of the images’ economies of gives rise to blogs both specific and heterogeneous, both desire. Most images had no captions but some provided mini- structured around a specific theme—be it pictorial or other— mal framing of action, as in “Work Got Boring, So Here you and catering to user curiosity with surprising and whimsical Go”: “BW—celebrating the last few minutes before vaca- combinations of seemingly disparate elements. tion” or “Cock out at work and on the fit secretary’s desk.” Shared in this visual economy, the now-banned dick pics Many captions simply evoked boredom as key motivation for were framed as desired, appreciated, and as open to entering whipping out the cock while also introducing social dynamics a range of social exchanges. Like naked selfies more gener- with co-workers, work itself, and working environments as ally, dick pics came in a range of Tumblr subcategories, from fuel for their selfie desires. general forums such as “Dick Pics,” “Cock pics,” “Send-Ur- Writing on Tumblr’s nonlinear “queer reverb” of “repeat Cock-Pics,” and “Amateur Cock” to blogs dedicated to and repeat,” Cho (2015, pp. 46, 47) identified it as a “palpa- celebrities, small or large penis size, as well as to dick pics ble, subterranean rhythm”: “dark optimism of a hovering defined by their spaces and contexts of production. Consisting possibility for community, the release of self-expression . . . of images submitted by visitors and harvested by the blog- and the potential for kinship and intimacy outside of hetero- gers themselves, the Tumblrs often catered to male viewers normative family and relationship structures.” The exchange in their penile aestheticization. Nevertheless, these displays and circulation of dick pics motivated by boredom and the were not necessarily coded as either straight or gay, or fixed pleasure of showing off may at first glance seem quite as catering to people of any specific gender identification. In detached from such emergent sexual publics resistant to gen- instances such as “Things My Dick Does” (est. 2012), prob- der and sexual normativity. They can nevertheless be seen as ably the best-known example of penile social media micro- gradations of the non-identity based sexual reverb that Cho celebrity, black and white dick pics featured along with mapped out, and as equally involving, and being driven by, additional cartoon elements of facial elements and hands. an affective charge of potentiality. Dick pic after dick pic The blog described “the little dude’s” mundane, seemingly gave rise to affinity and sameness across scales of variation independent adventures from getting all messy with ejaculate without anchoring their inter-connections in any notion of 6 Social Media + Society sexual identity, orientation, purpose, aim, or desire. It is the “8½ inches of cock!” and “nice cock” (Mowlabocus, 2010a, male body, and the penis in particular, that remained the key pp. 139-140). focus of attention and curatorial effort. These Tumblr dis- In the late 1990s, sites such as Gaydar and Squirt intro- plays of appreciation remained detached from the figure of duced profile-based database logic to hooking up (Light, harassment that dominates journalistic coverage of unsolic- 2007, 2016; Light, Fletcher, & Adam, 2008; Mowlabocus, ited dick pics in heterosexual exchanges. Instead, they 2010a; O’Riordan, 2005). This early web based hook-up cul- offered the penis as object for any willing gaze that can be ture introduced further forms of the shareable dick through endlessly re-blogged, and hence recontextualized, indepen- the deployment of digitized photography, video chat, and dent of the interests and desires of those uploading the file writing of dicks into interfaces. Gaydar’s profile template, (cf. Renninger, 2015, p. 1525). In contrast to the assumptions for instance, invites users to provide a description of them- about the phallic power of the unsolicited dick pic addressed selves, including an indication of penis size and circumcision above, the intended audience remained open while the pub- status, preferred sexual role, and attitude toward safe sex lics that the blogs comprised were both ambivalent and (Cassidy, 2016; Light, 2007; Mowlabocus, 2010a). Guides to heterogeneous. using Gaydar further explicate and foreground the impor- tance of the dick in hook-up culture: “Mr Right Now wants Desired Dicks to see your cock—not a pic of you cuddling Aunty Ethel on Christmas Day. Mr Right might be put off by a cock-only In sexual cultures among same-sex attracted men, attitudes portfolio” (JockBoy26, 2010, p. 17). toward and practices regarding the presence, sharing, and In the early days of Gaydar, and before the widespread circulation of the digitized dick are also complicated. Dick uptake of digital cameras and smart phones, members offered pics are pervasive within dating and hook up apps used by to take and digitize pics for those who did not have access to same-sex attracted men and are a generally accepted actor the necessary technology, such as flatbed scanners. Gaydar within this sexual infrastructure. For this group, the con- also provided chat rooms where links to Microsoft Network sumption of the dick pic has been a central feature and (MSN) chat accounts were shared freely in order for mem- enabler of digitally mediated sexual cultures since the emer- bers to engage in camming. This activity often focused on gence of the Web and other computer networks. This con- the dick rather than faces. Such networked visual sharing of trasts with (hetero)sexual cultures where their presence is the dick continues today. The ability to archive and access presented as much more problematic or at least ambivalent sexual partners, as afforded by networked communication, for their assumed grossness or banality. has significant social, personal, and communal impacts and Early studies of online community such as that of David potentials for affording and generating novel forms of sexual F. Shaw (1997, p. 139) show the presence of the dick in the publics—or “publics of privates” (Race, 2015, p. 505). use of pseudonyms, where one user calls themselves Even given more readily available access to camming and “Meateatr,” and in discourse as “Scorsese” informs the the high-quality video made available via technological researcher “You’ve heard of ‘IRC inches?’ . . . somebody developments such as apps, smart phones, fiber optics, WiFi, says eight and you know it’s probably five.” John Campbell and 4G, the static dick pic continues to have value within (2004, p. 70) similarly points to the role of the dick where a hook up cultures among same-sex attracted men. For its part, user jokingly asks another if they are “still cruising for cock” the Squirt app exemplifies the continuing presence and cir- and yet another, when asked how he identifies his gender on culation of dick pics, alongside more novel visual innova- Internet Relay Chat (IRC), simply responds with “my dick.” tions such as “sexicons” (see Light, 2016). Sexicons, a play The early practices of those seeking to hook up on the now on emoticons, are shareable GIFs portraying particular sex- defunct French Minitel system further allude to the dick. As ual proclivities that include the dick as a mode of communi- Anna Livia (2002) notes, numbers (between 10 and 25— cation in a variety of ways, as shown in Figure 1. Such GIFs referring to centimeters) and/or abbreviations like TTBM reference the early days of online sexual play among gay (Très Très Bien Monté, translating into very very well hung) men where similar assemblages featured to add life to pre- are used in complex codes of expressive pseudonyms to dominantly textual environments (see Campbell, 2004). denote penis size among other information such as location. On Squirt, face pics are often stored privately and made Moreover, an Australian study, conducted in the mid 2000s available only to those who are serious about hooking up: found that 80.5% of survey participants had viewed explicit profiles often feature a dick pic instead. The reasons for this pictures—dick pics included—on chat profiles in prepara- vary in that some users of the app are not open about their tion for arranging a meet up (Murphy, Rawstorne, Holt, & sexual preferences in everyday life, some are married to or in Ryan, 2004). Similar language is evidenced in Sharif partnerships with other men and women, and the activities Mowlabocus’ (2010a) study of the cybercottage, Uni_ associated with the app are not necessarily socially or legally Cock. The name of the cybercottage points to the centrality acceptable (Light, 2016). of the dick in same-sex attracted men’s digital culture, That dicks are so pervasive in dating and hook-up apps while individual posts include references to a “6” cut cock,” used by same-sex attracted men, however, does not imply Paasonen et al. 7

Figure 1. Sexicons on Squirt. that their presence is any less easy to swallow for some. The of user profiles. The app can operate in this way because it visual presence of the dick has long been contested. The does not have to conform to the regulations or community practice of displaying a dick rather than a face has occurred standards posed by Apple’s App Store or the Google Play on Squirt since its inception in 1998, as it has on sites such as infrastructure (Light, 2016). In contrast, Gaydar and Grindr Gaydar. Yet, some members refuse to respond to messages are subject to app store rules with both Apple and Google from people who do not have a picture of their face but only stores banning sexually explicit materials or those that stim- one of their dick (see Light, 2007; Mowlabocus, 2010b). ulate gratification. The strict implementation of this policy Those who offer a dick pic or a torso shot instead are often would not allow for the existence of Gaydar or Grindr in the not openly gay (or out) and do not post a facial picture for Google Play store—both apps nevertheless exist within it, fear of being identified. Consequently, these members are suggesting that an element of interpretive flexibility is clearly marginalized within what they may perceive as a safe envi- being deployed by app stores. This disconnect between the ronment and which is favored over traditional meeting places users of these apps and these platforms also highlights the such as bars (Light, 2007). The situation persists with new dominance of the idea of dick pics as inherently toxic and apps such as Grindr where members using face pics are tied to issues of harassment. Even in contexts where it is an reportedly seen as more genuine and honest, and where users object of desire, the dick pic cannot avoid this framing. are wary of, or do not talk to, those without face pictures (Blackwell, Birnholtz, & Abbott, 2015). Conclusion While the previous sections demonstrate the desirability of the curation of dick pics, a common complaint made in The visual ecology and economy of social media revolve hook up apps for same sex attracted men is the presence of around the imperative of capturing and optimizing user dick pic collectors. These individuals are cast as duplicitous attention (e.g. Marwick, 2015, p. 138). If visual content fails members who pretend to want to meet in order to gain access to stand out and appeal to people browsing through sites and to dick pics, whether in platform or via requesting additional apps through the resonances it has to offer, it flows by, fails pics to be sent by other means such as SMS, WhatsApp, or to circulate, and is soon enough forgotten. Despite the nota- Snapchat. Once pics have been received, the conversation is ble institutional and other contextual differences involved, abruptly ended and the user who has provided them may be this broad logic applies equally to journalistic photos appeal- blocked. This activity can be read as a form of harassment as ing to the readership of online newspapers, viral web content pics are appropriated in undesired ways. Rather than the dick brands like Lolcats, Tinder profiles, and sexually explicit pic being sent in an unsolicited fashion, it is instead taken, user-generated content such as dick pics. At the same time, undermining the expectations and desires of the dick pic the attention that dick pics garner across different social sharer. media platforms ranges not only in its intensities—from the Platforms through which desired dicks circulate also con- pics being ignored to evoking a torrent of responses—but test their legitimacy. The mobile version of Squirt, for exam- also in its affective qualities. Particularly where women are ple, operates as a HTML5 site. Unlike apps such as Gaydar concerned, unsolicited dick pics are predominantly under- and Grindr, Squirt does not offer members the option of stood as ruptures in networked communication that make downloading it from the Apple App Store or Google Play. expected forms of sociability come to a halt and be recali- This configuration creates a set of very particular associa- brated, often in highly antagonistic ways. Yet, unsolicited tions. Squirt is proudly uncensored, barring only certain dick pics are equally part of the everyday uses of hook up forms of illegal imagery such as the inclusion of minors and apps used by same sex attracted men. Receipt of unsolicited animal sex, and dick pics can therefore be viewed on the dick pics in this context is more commonly experienced as dis- opening page of the app which comprises a geo-locative grid interest and boredom than harassment. In contrast, requested, 8 Social Media + Society searchable, and desired dick pics may smoothly facilitate ORCID iD intimate exchanges and accelerate the reverbs of sexual Ben Light https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0038-8979 desire in all kinds of contexts. Rather than being the simple exercise of misogynist energy that is so often attributed to it, References the dick pic is a complex, multivalent object that is not so Blackwell, C., Birnholtz, J., & Abbott, C. (2015). 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Ben Light is Professor of Digital Society and Associate Dean Kylie Jarrett is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Research and Innovation, in the School of Health and Society at Media Studies at Maynooth University, Ireland. She is author of University of Salford, UK. He is author of Disconnecting with Social Feminism, Labor and Digital Media: The Digital Housewife Networking Sites (Palgrave Macmillan 2014) and with Garry (Routledge 2016) and with Ken Hillis and Michael Petit is co- Crawford and Victoria Gosling, co-author of Online Gaming in con- author of Google and the Culture of Search (Routledge 2013), She text (Routledge 2011). His work is concerned with (non)consump- has extensively researched the political economy of the Web, tion of the digital, gender and sexuality online, and digital methods. including eBay, YouTube, and Facebook.